Death may Die

What dies with death?

Arcane Drafting

Arcane Drafting

So, you know how to design procedures in game terms, but how does your character go about designing the monster you’ve built? In general, arcane design requires detailed, in-depth knowledge that would require a dedicated four-year Master’s degree and still only provide the basic roots of the design process.

Fortunately, using ArCAD or similar software an arcane scientist can apply theoretical principles without having to go through the intense calculations, and keeping up in real time with the effects of alterations to the procedure.

Still, it is a time- and labor-intensive task. This functions as a Labor task. However, instead of quality-hours, it takes quality-days (a single “cycle” of the process occupies a full day of effort). In general, characters use Arcane Sciences for this Labor task, but it can be assisted by Research Analysis.

Quality-Days

When attempting arcane design, every result is against a roll of a difficulty. The difficulty depends on the arcane drafting software in use, the type of procedure in design, and other factors. Ties provide no benefit, but every point by which the roll succeeds provides one quality-day.

If the character is creating an arcane procedure from scratch then the difficulty is 1d8. Reduce this by one die type if the character has the design notes for another, similar procedure. If the character is using arcane design software, this will add an additional difficulty element depending on the design software employed. If the character is doing this by hand, not employing any design software at all, this increases the difficulty by 2d12.

APF

Severe APF sets in as a consequence of arcane drafting. Use the severe rules for APF, and remember that the character suffers one “hit” per day. The difficulty to resist it is 1d12.

Special Situations

Development Teams

One of the unusual facets of arcane procedural development is the added stress of adding additional people to the workspace. The psychological problems set in with the process of groupthink.

When one person starts thinking well outside the box of human dignity, the individual can center himself to work against mental degeneracy. If several people coordinate outside the box of human dignity, it becomes a social process. A social process is that much harder to overcome.

One person in the team becomes the team lead. Every member of the team then uses Arcane Sciences (or Research Analysis, or both – see below). The lead uses Lead to coordinate. The team lead may take a number of results from the group equal to his Lead result.

However, every member of the group suffers additional consequences. When rolling the difficulty to resist APF degeneracy, roll an additional d12. The team lead suffers considerable problems – he must roll twice for APF degeneracy and resist both results.

Research Analysis

Secondary research can greatly truncate the time investment in arcane design. It is possible for a person to engage in both research and design at the same time, but a coordinated team can include dedicated researchers and dedicated designers.

The designer must incorporate the research into the design, however. The research itself does nothing. Roll difficulty for Research Analysis separately. Accumulate every point of result, but keep it separate. For every quality-day of Arcane Sciences, one quality-day of Research Analysis can go towards the design result. Thus, Research Analysis can as much as double the effectiveness of the design process.

However, Research Analysis will also suffer the same APF degeneracy as Arcane Sciences. In addition, if someone performs both Arcane Sciences and Research Analysis simultaneously, roll an additional d12 for the APF degeneracy difficulty.